Category: Paragraph

In relation to the spheres of private right and private welfare, of the family and of civil society, the state is, on the one hand, an external necessity and their higher power, to whose nature their laws and interests are subordinate and on which they are dependent; but, on the other hand, it is their…

The actual Idea, spirit, which divides itself into the two ideal spheres of its concept — the family and civil society — as into its finitude, in order to be, out of their ideality, infinite actual spirit for itself, thereby allots to these spheres the material of this its finite actuality, individuals as the mass,…

Within these spheres, in which its moments — individuality and particularity — have their immediate and reflected reality, spirit is present as their objective universality shining into them, as the power of the rational within necessity (§ 184), namely as the institutions considered above.

The individuals of the mass, since they are themselves spiritual natures and thus contain within themselves the doubled moment — namely the extreme of individuality knowing and willing for itself, and the extreme of universality knowing and willing the substantial — and therefore attain the right of these two sides only in so far as…

These institutions constitute, in the particular sphere, the constitution — that is, rationality developed and actualized — and are therefore the firm basis of the state, as well as of the confidence and disposition of individuals toward it, and the pillars of public freedom, since in them particular freedom is realized and rational, so that…

But spirit is objective and actual not merely as this necessity and as a realm of appearance, but as the ideality of this necessity and as its inner being; thus this substantial universality is an object and a purpose to itself, and that necessity is thereby equally present in the shape of freedom.

Necessity within this ideality is the development of the Idea within itself; as subjective substantiality it is the political disposition, and as objective substantiality, in distinction from the former, it is the organism of the state — the properly political state and its constitution.

The disposition takes its particular determinate content from the different sides of the organism of the state. This organism is the development of the Idea into its differences and into their objective actuality. These differentiated sides are thus the different powers and their respective business and activities, through which the universal continually — since these…

That the purpose of the state is the universal interest as such, and within this, as its substance, the preservation of particular interests, is, first, its abstract actuality or substantiality; but this is, second, its necessity, in that it diremps itself into the differences, determined by the concept, of its activity, which, through that substantiality,…

The political constitution is, in the first place: the organization of the state and the process of its organic life in relation to itself, in which it differentiates its moments within itself and develops them into subsistence. Secondly, the state is, as an individuality, an exclusive unit, which thereby relates itself to others, and thus…

I. The Internal Constitution as such The constitution is rational in so far as the state differentiates and determines its activity within itself according to the nature of the concept, and indeed in such a way that each of these powers is itself, within itself, the totality, in that it has the other moments effectively…

The political state thus diremps itself into the substantial differences:a) the power to determine and establish the universal — the legislative power;b) the subsumption of the particular spheres and individual cases under the universal — the governmental power;c) subjectivity as the ultimate decision of the will — the power of the crown, in which the…

Since spirit is actual only as that which it knows itself to be, and the state, as the spirit of a people, is at the same time the law permeating all its relations, as well as the customs and the consciousness of its individuals, the constitution of a specific people depends in general on the…

a. The Power of the Crown The power of the crown itself contains within it the three moments of the totality (§ 272): the universality of the constitution and the laws; deliberation as the referring of the particular to the universal; and the moment of ultimate decision, as self-determination, into which everything else reverts and…

1. The basic determination of the political state is substantial unity as the ideality of its moments, in which α) its particular powers and functions are as much dissolved as preserved, and are preserved only in such a way that they possess no independent authority, but only such and so much authority as is determined…

β) The particular functions and activities of the state, being essential moments of it, are proper to it, and are attached to the individuals by whom they are administered and exercised not in virtue of their immediate personality, but only in virtue of their universal and objective qualities; they are therefore connected with particular personality…

These two determinations — that the particular functions and powers of the state are neither self-sufficient and fixed in themselves nor in the particular will of individuals, but have their ultimate root in the unity of the state as their simple self — constitute the sovereignty of the state. This is sovereignty internally; it has…

2. Sovereignty — at first merely the universal thought of this ideality — exists only as the self-certain subjectivity, and as the abstract, and to that extent groundless, self-determination of the will, in which the ultimate moment of decision resides. This is the individuality of the state as such, which is itself thereby only one.…

3. This ultimate self of the will of the state is, in this its abstraction, simple, and hence immediate individuality; in its very concept, therefore, lies the determination of naturalness. The monarch is accordingly essentially determined as this individual, abstracted from all other content, and this individual is destined for the dignity of monarch in…